Photo, above: Valentine's Day tractor.    It's florists’s sacred mission to get their blooms into the hands of their customers this Valentine’s Day, come hell or high snow. We heard about two pioneering petal-pushers who tried innovative new ways to get flowers out this week. One plan succeeded, but the other failed due to government intervention.

FlowerDeliveryExpress.com had tested its flower-delivery drone and was ready to introduce it on V-Day. They even put out promotional photos and made this video showing how it works, in case the concept of “a drone brings you flowers” wasn’t clear.

What's clear is that commercial applications for civilian drones aren’t legal yet, so the FAA stepped in and plucked the store’s plans to use them for flower delivery. Other businesses forced to stay in the prototype phase aimed to use unmanned aircraft to deliver beer and burritos.

It’s a great idea for times when roads are impassable, but the government just doesn’t have the regulations down yet.

In North Carolina, one florist decided to use a tricked-out love tractor to make deliveries in downtown Lexington. Outlying areas got their flowers by old-fashioned van, but the shop owner’s 11-year-old son drove the tractor to make deliveries in town. “We’re not letting anything stop us. We’re getting our flowers out one way or another,” the owner said proudly. [Credit: consumerist{dot}com]

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block A:   Daniel Henninger, WSJ WONDER LAND, in re: Obama's Favorite Gini 
The Democratic left will never support the real solution to income inequality.

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block B:  John Tamny, Forbes.com, in re: Ann Coulter's Anti-Immigration Stance Wrecks Basic Economics Ann Coulter is easily one of the most entertaining commentators in existence today. To read her is to be made envious by her wit. Ann Coulter's political assumptions behind her anti-immigration stance are very debatable, and then the economics of her views on new entrants would have Henry Hazlitt spinning.  Despite what she presumes, "cheap labor" is actually very expensive, and is in no way rendering natives unemployable. Forbes.com. 

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Kori Schake, Defining Ideas (Hoover Institution), in re: Egypt and “The End of History”

Photo, left:  Authoritarian capitalism: there's no evidence that such a regime can encourage innovation – a requisite to a healthy economy in this century. See: Hour 1, Block C, Kori Schak of, Defining Ideas (Hoover Institution), on Egypt and “The End of History”

". . . This is certainly true of China, where constraints on freedom of political expression were far looser in the 1980s than today, demonstrating how the country's inexorable economic march has been accompanied by tighter limits on political speech and action." Russia has an economy of sorts – it's wholly dependent on oil; used to require oil  at $50/Bbl; now needs it at $115/Bbl.  Therefore, Russia has either to open its economy up to Western-style capitalism with transparency and the rule of law – or else have the people no longer want prosperity. 

 

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block D:  Admiral Gary Roughead, Hoover Institution, in re: Drones—Saving Our Soldiers by Admiral Gary Roughead  The warrior’s endless quest is to be more lethal and more precise and to enhance the probabilities of human survival and victory in war. Technology has always influenced war and war has always influenced technology. From spear to bow, bow to gun, gun to missile, sail to steam; all have changed the way humans deliver violence. Soon after man took to the air, military use of airplanes followed quickly. Drones do not increase precision or lethality; in fact, payloads are well under those of manned vehicles. Superficially, drones may be seen as a small step in the natural evolution of air and naval warfare, but they are more than that.

Throughout history, human endurance has been a weighty consideration in military operations—drones change the equation. The limits of human endurance no longer apply. Removing the human from the vehicle, whether airborne or under the sea, eliminates constraining human physical factors. Drone endurance limitations exist but are far less a factor than those of a human. While few think of underwater drones, their endurance transforms markedly undersea warfare—consider an underwater drone that can remain undetected or even dormant in the battle space for months.

Above all else, removing human risk changes warfare in a fundamental way. Taking the human from the battle space while keeping sensors and lethal force present to kill or hold an enemy at risk is a very unbalanced equation in the drone’s favor. Gone, too, is the need for significant planning, dedicated forces, and the additional risk to . . .

Hour Two

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block A:  Jim McTague, Barron's Washington, in re: Obama says immigration overhaul, minimum wage hike should top Congressional agenda  President Barack Obama said Friday that top priorities for Congress should be increasing the minimum wage and . . . 

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block B:  Mica Rosenberg, Reuters, in re:  Exclusive: Duo tracks double-dipping in U.S. oil firms' toxic tank cleanup  A pioneer in cleaning up toxic messes, Thomas Schruben long suspected major oil companies of being paid twice for dealing with leaks from underground fuel storage tanks - once from government funds and again, secretly, from insurance companies. Schruben, a detail-oriented Maryland environmental engineer who helped draft government pollution rules going back 30 years, looked for a lawyer to help ferret out what he believed could in some cases be fraud. He found a partner in Dennis Pantazis, a buoyant, mustachioed son of Greek immigrants in Alabama known for bringing environmental and civil rights cases.

"Together we started unraveling the mystery," Schruben said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Schruben's former employer, has called the rusted, leaky steel tanks the single largest threat to groundwater in the United States. Often built for gas stations during the 1950s and '60s highway construction boom, the tanks corroded over time, spilling gas and diesel with potentially cancer-causing chemicals under properties and into aquifers.  The two men assembled a team of lawyers, investigators and experts to search public records and case files for evidence and brought their findings to state governments, hoping to be hired as advisers or legal counsel. New Mexico paid more than $1 million in attorney fees after one $5.2 million settlement from Chevron last September.

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Tammy Frisby, Hoover, in re:  Perhaps the most vexing problem for California Republicans is the behavior of national party leaders and members of Congress. National Republicans run the risk of drowning out messages that the state’s Republican candidates want to send about issues that Californians care about. There is the spillover harm done when the Republican National Committee votes—in a meeting in Hollywood—to reaffirm the party’s anti-gay marriage stance. But even setting aside the challenge for California Republicans on gay and women’s rights, the inaction of congressional Republicans on immigration could impede state Republicans from earning Californians’ trust on an issue important to the state and important to Californians. 

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Gregory Copley, author, UnCivilization, in re:  News: John Kerry appeals to China over North Korea nuclear talks US secretary of state John Kerry meets the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in Beijing.   China to Toughen Stance on North Korea, Kerry Says

Hour Three

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block A:  Bret Stephens, WSJ Global View, in re: Secretary ScarJo  The actress Scarlett Johansson could teach John Kerry about courage . . . 

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Lan Levin, Bloomberg, in re: Illegal Drones Used by ESPN, Movie The Wolf of Wall Street – Drones flown for a business purposes . . . are prohibited in the US . . .  Drones have nonetheless been used to film scenes in the Martin Scorsese-directed movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” and sporting events for Disney's ESPN. They’ve inspected oilfield equipment, mapped agricultural land and photographed homes and neighborhoods for real estate marketing, according to industry officials, company websites and videos on the Internet. [more]

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block C:  Richard A Epstein, Defining Ideas Hoover Institution; and Chicago Law, in re: Rethinking the Contraceptive Mandate  (1 of 2)

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Defining Ideas Hoover Institution; and Chicago Law, in re: Rethinking the Contraceptive Mandate  (2 of 2)

Hour Four

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World by Lincoln Paine.  (Part 5 of 8)

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World by Lincoln Paine.  (Part 6 of 8)

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World by Lincoln Paine.  (Part 7 of 8)

Friday  14 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World by Lincoln Paine.  (Part 8 of 8)

..  ..  ..

 

Music

Hour 1:  Tinker Tailor Solider Spy. The Hunted

Hour 2:  The Recruit.  Mark Twain, Hotel California.   House of Flying Daggers

Hour 3:  Hurt Locker.  Elysium. Knight & Day.

Hour 4:  Master & Commander.